


spider lilies

by detectiveyuta



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Unrequited Love, i wanted to make myself sad, no further questions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:54:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29296950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detectiveyuta/pseuds/detectiveyuta
Summary: spider lilies are yuta's favourite flower. they are beautiful yet sad. these flowers grow whenever people are destined to part ways for good.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Kim Jungwoo, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	spider lilies

**Author's Note:**

> i am a complete doyu supremacist and i love angst so this is just self indulgent !! kudos and feedback are appreciated ^^

Red spider lilies. 

Yuta almost wants to laugh when he sees the petals clutched in his hand. They had covered them only a few months ago in his theology class. But his fixation had started long before then. Yuta had always been fascinated by the flower, the way the petals gently unfolded reminded him of flames, and the burning of love he felt in his throat.

His earliest memories of these strange crimson flowers were the dense blooms alongside his grandfather's grave. They glistened in the autumn sun like fresh blood rising straight out of the ground. These flowers were peculiar, they bloomed at the same time each year, rising like flames to bring warmth to cold autumn days spent in the cemetery. 

Higanbana. 

Flowers of the equinox as they were known.

There was a dark beauty about them. Yuta liked to stroll through them, the deep red petals growing alongside the bright yellow rice fields ready for harvest made for a colorful contrast. The perfect palette for the Autumn Equinox. 

Their fiery tones reminded him fondly of Doyoung. When they met he had beautiful tangerine coloured hair that reminded Yuta of warm gently glowing embers. However, it was his blazing personality that really sparked the connection in Yuta’s mind. He had never met anyone so passionate and vibrant. 

Doyoung could be set ablaze so quickly, fully immersing himself into a heated debate on anything. Yuta had watched him debate the relevance of font size in comparison to the content of the paper for three hours when their ethics professor scolded a classmate for straying from guidelines.

However, spider lilies weren’t planted to fulfill an aesthetic view for a passerby. Their bulbs are poisonous. Planted with the purpose to keep wild animals from feasting on the corpses. Yuta preferred not to think about that, the sinister roots beneath the beautiful blooms. 

Unfortunately this too had come to remind him of his best friend. His pretty face, his infectious smile, the way his eyes twinkled when he laughed. Yuta never expected him to have a poisonous root. Not that he could help it. He had no idea that he was slowly killing his best friend.

Another peculiarity of these flowers is that the blossoms and the leaves can never meet. The flowers unfold on the end on a long shaft protruding from the ground. Once the blossoms wilt and the shaft rots, the leaves turn up. There is no way to see the flower in a complete form. One part will always be missing. 

This too reminds Yuta of Doyoung. It reminds him that he doesn’t return his feelings, the ones that are rising from his throat to choke him when they lock eyes. It reminds him Doyoung will never be his.

Scientifically, there was probably an explanation, something in their biology to neatly tidy away the strangeness of these complex flowers. Yuta preferred not to know, he liked the story his grandmother told him more, the story of Manju and Saka. 

Manju was tasked with guarding the flower and Saka the leaves. Since the flowers must decay for the leaves to grow they could never meet, yet they were curious about each other. Despite it being forbidden they met anyway, defying the gods that tasked them. It was love at first sight, of course. Their defiance angered the goddess Amaterasu. Ruthless, she cursed them to be separated in a cycle of reincarnation, never to meet again. Each time they pass by the Sanzu river, on their way through the afterlife, they smell the Higanbana and briefly remember each other, swearing not to forget again, but soon they fall victim to the reincarnation, the memory only lasting for seconds. 

They are bittersweet. A double edged sword. Beautiful and vibrant with poisonous roots, a symbol of separation, of the lovers who will never meet again. And now they were blooming in Yuta’s lungs. Another bittersweet reminder, they were beautiful and vibrant like Doyoung, but they were slowly poisoning him. 

It almost feels karmic. These peculiar yet beautiful flowers that had begun to sprout within his very own lungs. Yuta had always been more of a romantic than he cared to admit, constantly searching for someone like Saka, someone he would defy the gods for. Someone he would die time after time for, just to meet in passing. The suffering of a lifetime was a willing exchange for those blissful seconds in which he could recount his love. And he had found it in Doyoung. But Doyoung had found it in someone else.

Yuta remembers when he felt the first itch in his throat. Doyoung had practically sprinted across the library and slid into the booth, colliding full force with Yuta, sending his heart rate through the roof from such a simple action. Yuta had never felt more foolish. He was so caught up in the rush of joy he felt whenever he saw Doyoung that he felt like the earth was crumbling beneath his feet when he started speaking.

“Jungwoo asked me to be his boyfriend!”

A simple exclamation. One that should be exciting. His best friend just got a boyfriend, he should be celebrating, yet instead he ran. He ran as fast as he could, crashing into anyone in his way, tears blurring his vision, he let his feet carry him to the nearest bathroom. 

Throwing himself to the floor he began to cough, violently. Hacking forcefully, attempting to clear his throat. It felt like he was suffocating. Small, delicate red flowers fall to his lap. 

Red petunias. 

Resentment.

Yuta regretted spending so much time with Taeyong. He had a part time job in a florist’s and that was their go to study spot for the past two years. Against his own will Yuta had become well versed in the language of flowers. It was almost ironic. Even as he was coughing flower petals from his lungs he resented his knowledge of their meanings, not Doyoung. He could never resent Doyoung, even as he slowly killed him.

Shortly after Doyoung asked him for coffee to gush about how perfect his first date with Jungwoo was, came the red chrysanthemums.

I love you.

Then it was their six month anniversary, they had a small house warming party to celebrate finally moving in together. This time it was red carnations.

My heart aches for you.

The red primrose came when they adopted a cat together, Doyoung affectionately named him Nayu, in honour of how much Yuta loved cats, and how much Doyoung loved him, his best friend. 

I can’t live without you.

Yesterday marked one year. One whole year since Yuta’s lungs had become infested with flowers. That brought the poppies. 

Eternal sleep.

Yuta knew he didn’t have much time left when he rinsed his blood from the fully bloomed flower his lungs produced. He was determined to make it at least a few days past Doyoung’s anniversary. As much as he resented Jungwoo, and their relationship, he couldn’t put that burden on Doyoung. He couldn’t leave that sort of curse looming over them, just because he chose to suffer didn’t mean he could pass it to them, afterall, Doyoung didn’t know any better.

Yuta coughs again. Eyes screwed tightly shut, hand pressed to his mouth, in a feeble attempt to stop the coughing. He knows better, but it’s a reflex. Tears begin to spill from the corners of his eyes as Yuta wheezes. It hurts. A lot worse than before. Finally he manages to choke it out. 

A perfectly formed red spider lily sits covered in his own blood sits in his hand. Yuta’s throat feels absolutely ravaged by the pain. Silent tears continue to spill down his cheeks. 

He is going to die and he knows it. 

He wonders how something so beautiful could cause so much pain. Hanahaki was supposed to be just a myth he read in books. An abstract concept for hopeless romantics like him to dream a happy ending from. Each time he had read about it, there was a happy ending. At the last minute the sufferer would be saved by their true love’s reciprocated feelings and live happily ever after. Angst and pining with a happy ending. The kind of story he secretly enjoyed reading instead of taking notes in his 9am lectures.

This wasn’t a romance novel. Yuta was going to die of unrequited love surrounded by his favourite flower. Spider lilies were supposed to be a reminder of something beautiful, a reminder of beauty blooming from decay, yet for Yuta, it was a reminder of something he couldn't have. 

He doesn’t know how long he lies on his bathroom floor before Doyoung finds him. The cold tiles were soothing, he was far too weak to move anyway. He looks horrified, but Yuta can’t blame him. He’s laying in a pile of flowers and his own blood. He hadn’t wanted him to find him like this. He had hoped the next time they met would be another life, maybe it would be possible to pass each other on the Sanzu river.

Doyoung collapses beside him, silent tears of his own beginning to drip down his face. Even in his weakened state Yuta can’t help it. He reaches up and gently brushes the tears away from his cheeks.

“Stay with me.”

Doyoung is pleading. Yuta knows his brain is going a thousand miles per second trying to analyse the situation and find the quickest solution. It was something he loved about him. Doyoung loved to fix things. Unfortunately, Yuta was beyond fixing.

“I can’t.”

Yuta can’t help the ghost of a smile crossing his face. At least Doyoung will miss him. There’s some solace in that. He was here, Doyoung loved him, even platonically. That is enough for him. 

“What are they?”

It’s so very Doyoung to need to understand each and every detail of the situation, to try to pry an impossible solution out of the stone cold facts. It’s far too endearing to Yuta.

“Spider Lilies. Higanbana. They really have a lot of names.” 

It was true. Sometimes they were called the flower with six hundred names. Yuta liked that. It felt like there was a different name for the context in which they bloomed. Right now he was beginning to think maybe they should be known more commonly as Jigokubana. The flower of Hell. It was truly brutal to see the anguish in Doyoung’s eyes, to watch himself fade away through them. To see Doyoung realise he can’t fix this. 

Yuta’s breathing became increasingly more laboured. The flowers were attempting to climb out of his mouth. 

“I’m sorry.”

It was all he could manage. 

Higanbana were truly cruel flowers. The flowers can never meet for the leaves must wither in order for the flowers to blossom. They miss one another to grow and thrive. They wilt and leave a yearning behind, never being able to unite. Yuta thinks it’s almost beautiful. To miss each other even in death. He should’ve known from the start, when he first layed eyes on Doyoung the Higanbana took root, after all it is believed they bloom along your path when you meet a person you’re destined to never cross paths with again. 

He doesn’t fear them. Jigokubana, the flowers of hell. Afterall, they’ll guide him towards the afterlife, towards the Sanzu river, where he’ll meet with Doyoung again. For those few seconds, this has all been worth it. Yuta would walk through hell time after time to remember Doyoung.


End file.
